Clutch Joe Mauer Is Suddenly An RBI Machine

I'm not thrilled that we have 3+ more years of decline Mauer ahead of us, when the best thing that could happen to this team positionally is to have Vargas at first and Arcia at DH.

"Often regarded as an opposite field hitter (outside of his relative reliability at pulling ground balls)"

This is actually a pretty big misconception.  Mauer pulls ground balls more often because everyone pulls ground balls more often.  He's actually well below average in GB pull rate, as he is in every trajectory type.  It's just that his flyball pull rate is crazy low, or at least it has been to this point in his career.

For his career, Mauer bats .333/.457/.480 with RISP. Those numbers are better than his career slashline in every category.

Yes, this year his numbers with RISP are even better, but it's not like he's always been a slacker in RBI situations.  RBI is a stat this is dependent on opportunities.  Dependent on other players getting into scoring position. His clutch numbers are also very good across the board for his career, for those who talk about how clutch he has or hasn't been in his career.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.cgi?id=mauerjo01&year=Career&t=b

Again, it's been reported that Joe's left leg is health for the 1st time in over a year.  That's the leg he drives off of.  The Summer months are upon us and we should see an up-tick from all hitters. 

Beginning his 12th year, he still has a .318 lifetime BA.  Of course he's declining.    The biggest issue is: who's ready to take over 1st?

For his career, does he take a lot of walks in those situations because some pitchers/teams would rather not give him anything decent to hit in those situations (especially if it's in a critical situation). because he does so well in those situations (and because he's such a good hitter, period)?  

Notice 1/3 of the walks he has in those situations are intentional walks?  I wonder how many more are because they nibble around and say, 'well, if I can get him to swing at something bad and get weak contact or a strikeout, that's fine, but If not putting him on base isn't as bad as the alternative?'

If I was someone who thought the RBI stat was a good way to judge a hitter, I would be pretty happy with the amount Mauer has right now, but he's been below average at creating runs this season, so overall, his overall offensive performance has been bad, which hurts me to say.

For his career, Mauer bats .333/.457/.480 with RISP. Those numbers are better than his career slashline in every category.

 

Yes, this year his numbers with RISP are even better, but it's not like he's always been a slacker in RBI situations. RBI is a stat this is dependent on opportunities. Dependent on other players getting into scoring position. His clutch numbers are also very good across the board for his career, for those who talk about how clutch he has or hasn't been in his career.

 

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.cgi?id=mauerjo01&year=Career&t=b

Just about every hitter has better stats with RISP than otherwise, for multiple reasons.

Pitchers in the stretch and/or tired, defenses unable to shift... as well as RISP situations more commonly happening with at least one out, so runners are more apt to go early.

Just about every hitter has better stats with RISP than otherwise, for multiple reasons.

 

Do you have supporting evidence to support that theory?

Please read this

http://stats.seandolinar.com/risp/

in the wrap-up the writer says: ' I don’t exactly have an explanation, but it appears that there are more MLBers that bat worse with RISP than overall. My one thought is that pitchers are pitching more cautiously or that fresh relief pitchers are more likely to come into the game when there’s a runner in scoring position.'

In any event, how many have players have numbers that are that good over the course of a career that long. Even if the theory is correct, which I've never heard until now, they'd still need to be a better line than Mauer's numbers with RISP, on average, to show he hasn't been very good in those situations.

Well, both leagues have better numbers with RISP (by a healthy margin) so one would assume that most players also have better numbers with RISP.

 

http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/split.cgi?t=b&lg=AL&year=2015

Please read this

http://stats.seandolinar.com/risp/

in the wrap-up the writer says: ' I don’t exactly have an explanation, but it appears that there are more MLBers that bat worse with RISP than overall. My one thought is that pitchers are pitching more cautiously or that fresh relief pitchers are more likely to come into the game when there’s a runner in scoring position.'

Well, both leagues have better numbers with RISP (by a healthy margin) so one would assume that most players also have better numbers with RISP.

 

http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/split.cgi?t=b&lg=AL&year=2015

The year is early, some players do so much better that it skews the averages

But to say almost every batter does better with RISP for a few months and then can maintain that kind of much better numbers over a long career is a different thing, IMO.

And even so, how many do better than Joe has done over the course of a career so long?  Because that's truly the main point in regards to this thread when talking about how he's all of a sudden become and RBI guy this year or clutch this year.

That's dealing with batting average. I'm looking at OPS for obvious reasons.

 

I spot-checked ten random years going back to the mid-70s and every year, the AL had a higher OPS with RISP than it did with the bases empty. Interestingly, the gap was small in the 3-4 years I checked from 1975-1990 and has expanded quite a bit since that time, growing up to a .040 OPS difference in a few recent seasons.

all I'm saying is this, and I probably wasn't clear, just because a league does a bit better as whole in RISP doesn't mean 'almost every batter does better with RISP'.  Some do way better, which skews the numbers, some do slightly worse or way worse, etc.  

I think what's mostly been determined is that over the course of a long career, hitters will bat close to their career overall numbers norms, whether it's with RISP or not.  So the great hitters will hit great with RISP and the bad hitters won't.

Brock, I get what you're saying and I'm just enjoying the conversation.  BTW, for his career, Mauer's OPS is 20% better than his normal OPS with a .362 BABIP.

And I understand the balls/strikes stuff there too.

 

But Mauer is/has been one of the leagues best hitters, yes? Elite at times even, yes?

 

It seems logical to me that you could expect him to do more than most guys with the pitches that "nibble" if he wanted too. That's why I word it as being "more aggressive." After all, he is still seeing "strikes," yes?

Other good hitters get "pitched around" in scoring situations too, yet they find ways to do damage and drive in runs.

I believe his SLG/ISO is part of the explaination, a too passive approach another part.

I think this overlooks the value of a walk in scoring situations.     With the bad teams Mauers value diminishes because of the efficiency of those around him.   When it was Morneau, Thome and Cuddyer behind him then walks mean more because they simply add base runners for good hitters which produce runs even though they don't show up very positively in the slugging or RBI stats.   

I've always been a Mauer supporter, and have oftentimes wondered why anyone would pitch to him with the game on the line. I have been concerned, however, with the "line drive" statistic. The home run he hit on Wednesday was the hardest hit ball I remember him hitting in over a month! When he's on, he'll have 4 AB's with 4 rockets. I realize no one can do that all the time, but it seems like those rockets have been missing for several weeks. Anyone agree?

I think this overlooks the value of a walk in scoring situations.     With the bad teams Mauers value diminishes because of the efficiency of those around him.   When it was Morneau, Thome and Cuddyer behind him then walks mean more because they simply add base runners for good hitters which produce runs even though they don't show up very positively in the slugging or RBI stats.   

And this is why I like wRC+ more than traditional stats.  Gives us a better picture of how many runs the player created with his offensive contributions, not just HR and RBI.  

And I will go back to this scenario, which comes up quite a bit.  Guy gets a walk, the next guy gets a single to RF and the guy goes from 1st to 3rd.  The next guy creates an out by hitting the ball just deep enough to score the guy on 3B.  The guy on first gets a run scored, the guy who flew out gets an RBI, and the guy who put the runner at 3B where he would be able to score on a SAC fly gets no credit, at all, in traditional stat line in regards to that guy scoring, yet he was vital to the guy scoring.